MILLER MEETS THE MEDIA, AGAIN

Roughriders head coach Ken Miller had his season-ending gab session with the media Tuesday morning near Taylor Field. Here is what he had to say:The decision to put Michael Bishop on waivers was obviously a very quick decision: “Eric and I met on Sunday afternoon and discussed that situation. We made a collective decision that we would do that. Actually, last night I met with Michael at 7 p.m., and released him.’’

How did Michael take it? “He is the consummate gentleman. Since I’ve known him, he has been an upstanding, forthright person. He took it as well as he could possibly take news of that severity.’’

You have been so patient with Michael. Was it tough dealing with him because you just couldn’t get the message across? “There is a certain level of frustration in not being able to get performance out of somebody who you believe has that performance to give.’’Where do we go now? “We have our quarterbacks under contract right now. We have Darian (Durant), Steven (Jyles), Drew Tate and Dalton Bell . . . did I miss anybody there? That’s where we are right now.’’Darian’s a free agent. “He is a free agent. He has expressed an interest in staying so we’re anxious to have him stay.’’What was the reasoning for releasing Michael and why so quickly? “It’s just a situation, I think, where we had ultimately decided that we weren’t going to go down that road any longer — that he had shown us conclusively that he was going to continue to be inconsistent. In order to build a foundation for our quarterback position here in the future, we just needed to turn the page and get on with the process with whomever that is going to be.’’How tough was it for you to deal with this quarterback situation all year, which never really was the way that you wanted it? “It was a difficult situation and, fortunately, we went through kind of a period where it seemed like it was a Midas touch. It just seemed to work out. Then you combine that with the injuries and the struggles that we had, and it became more difficult. And then we kind of got out of our rhythm, so it was kind of the opposite of the Midas touch. Toward the end, it was a difficult situation.’’What was a tougher challenge for you — the injuries or the quarterback situation? “Really, the quarterback situation, and the quarterback situation down the stretch — not the quarterback situation so much early in the season as down the stretch. In the injury situation, the men in our locker room just stepped up and whoever was in the lineup played, and played as hard as they could. Fortunately for us, a lot of times that was good enough.’’

You stood by Bishop after the game on Saturday. It seems so sudden for the decision to be made on Sunday. What happened in the 24 hours to change your mind? “At some point, you need to make a decision, so Eric and I talked about it and we made that decision and we just went forward with it.’’So you’re prepared to gamble and go with less-experienced people. “I don’t think it’s more of a gamble than what I pushed out on the table in backing Michael.’’

Is there any second-guessing of yourself for leaving him in so long on Saturday? “No, really not, because if you look at our last drive right before half, we scored. If you look at our first drive right after the half, we scored. In that sequence of things, it looked like we had the seeds of being able to get the offence moving and rolling. And then when he threw the interception for the touchdown, that was just the coup de grace, so there was no opportunity then to make the big plays for him to come back.’’Was it all based on the semifinal? How much of that weighed on your decision? “You don’t make a decision like this based on one game. You have to take into consideration the entire time that Michael was with us and his performances all the time that he was here, and he was inconsistent during that period of time.’’Have you enjoyed this year as head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders? “It has been absolutely great. Taking the heat here at the end is not the most pleasant thing, but it comes with the territory, and it’s a tremendous opportunity to be in an environment where football means so much to so many people.’’Are you looking forward to the future? “Absolutely.’’

Did Michael’s performance in Winnipeg and in Toronto almost lull you into a false sense of security because you kept waiting for that big play to happen? “Well, I don’t know if it was just those two games. I’ve known Michael for a long time and I’ve seen him perform like a new Phoenix, out of the ashes, several times during that period of time. Again, I’ll say as I said after the game, I felt during the game that he gave us our best opportunity to win against a very stubborn and tough B.C. Lions defence and team.’’Are you prepared at this point to go with the four quarterbacks you have here or would you be tempted to bring somebody in like, say, a Casey Printers if he’s available? “I really think that we have people available who can be developed to be the quarterback — somebody who we can develop from within our system to be the franchise quarterback here. When you bring somebody in from the outside, you have to be careful about that situation so you just don’t repeat a situation like we have just been through.’’Is there one of them that is closest to being the franchise quarterback? “We’ll answer that question as we get closer to training camp.’’

You mentioned that you got out of your rhythm a bit with the quarterbacking. How so? “It’s kind of a long answer, but I’ll attempt to shorten it down just a tad. With about four weeks to go, Eric and I met, as we often do, and we talked about going into a situation where we would see what every quarterback could do potentially. So the thing we did then was we ended up having a different starter for four weeks, if you consider the bookends of Michael Bishop, where we started Michael in one game and then we started Darian in a game and then we started Steven in a game and then we went back to Michael. We had talked about the possibility or the inevitability of that occuring as we evaluated Darian and Steven in live-game situations as starters again after them having not played for a period of time.’’

Is there one thing you take away from this season, or can you even answer that question since the body’s not cold yet? “That’s probably the better thing for me to do. I need to reflect on it a little bit more right now. There are a lot of raw nerve endings at this point in time.’’

How much of a learning experience was this season for you? “Certainly, it’s a learning experience. Like today, we had a season-ending meeting and I had to rely on other people for an agenda for that meeting to go on, so the learning continues.’’

Darian Durant is obviously a free agent? Are there any other free agents that you hope Eric really concentrates on and gets back on the ball club? “We have several free agents. I’m not going to identify individual people today.’’Any areas that you would like to strengthen besides the quarterback position? “Those are things that we need to discuss in-depth and evaluate. I need to meet with the ind

ividual position coaches and talk through some of those things before I’m able to come out publicly in those areas.’’With the decision you made late in the year to rotate the quarterbacks a bit, did that work out the way you designed it or hoped, or do you have any regrets about doing it that way at that juncture? “When you don’t win, you have regrets. Anything that we could have done to make it so we would have won, I would have liked to have done that. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.’’Any feelers so far for Bishop? “I’m not aware of them right now.’’You talked about the heat that you faced. That’s probably something new for you. How tough was it to deal with that heat and a lot of people talking about your job and the decisions you were making and second-guessing? “I think it takes a certain mental toughness to be able to deal with that but, on the other hand, there are so many people who were very, very positive all the time. It really balanced out. It probably balanced out more in positive than in negative.’’Now do you look at what you have to do to get back to the Grey Cup in 2009? “It’s a lttle bit too soon for me to do that. Perhaps in a few days or a couple of weeks, I’ll be able to address that topic.’’Were there times during the regular season, as the quarterback became uncertain or continued to be uncertain, that you regretted the Kerry Joseph trade? “Again, that was a decision made on salary-cap issues and not playing ability and those sorts of things. To second-guess that doesn’t make sense to me today.’’

It was an amazing year for quarterbacks. Have you ever seen a year for quarterbacks like this? “I’ve seen some tumultuous seasons. In Toronto, we had a couple of seasons that were fairly tumultuous. But this was unique because, really, I was the hand at the helm.’’Does any one moment stand out for you this year? “There are a lot of fourth quarters that stand out. I just want to say again that the character of the men in the locker room and the belief in their effort, and the effort that they gave through the season and through each game, we won a lot of games in the fourth quarter just because of a stubbornness and a willingness to continue to fight harder than the other teams were willing to fight.’’

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